iPhone 6 in 4.7 or 5.5 Inches: Which Will You Buy?

Would you like yours in large or extra large? Based on various reports, it seems all but a lock that the iPhone 6 will come in two varieties. One model will apparently sport a 4.7-inch display, up from a puny 4 inches on the iPhone 5s. And the other version will boast a 5.5-inch screen, planting Apple firmly in phablet territory.

There’s certainly a lot of pent-up demand for the iPhone 6. In fact, Apple is reportedly preparing 70 to 80 million units for production before the end of the year. But which size is right for you?

Because the larger iPhone 6 panel is reportedly more complicated to manufacture, it’s possible that the 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch models won’t arrive at the same time. The Wall Street Journal claims that production on the smaller version will start in August, with the bigger variant rolling off the line in September. However, it’s likely that both models will be announced at the same time.

No one really knows what resolution the iPhone 6 will offer, or whether it will be the same for the 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch versions. But the closest we’ve seen to a sound estimate comes from 9to5Mac, which reported in May that Apple was testing a 1704 x 960-pixel screen. That would be triple the resolution of the existing 1136 x 640-pixel display on the iPhone 5s.

Although many expect both versions of the iPhone 6 to be among the thinnest handsets yet, there’s no getting around the fact that 5.5 inches is not optimized for one-hand use. To give you an idea of the difference between a 4.7-inch display and a 5.5-inch one, here are two phones shown to scale with those size screens.

Granted, the two handsets we’ve recruited don’t have the same resolution. The 4.7-inch Moto X has a mere 720p, and the LG G3 rocks a much crisper quad HD display. But this photo that we took should give you an idea of how the two sizes stack up.

If we had to guess, most shoppers will gravitate towards the 4.7-inch iPhone 6. You’ll get a considerably larger screen than your old iPhone in a design that’s thinner and almost as compact. The 5.5-inch version will likely attract those who don’t want to carry a separate tablet, especially avid readers and movie watchers.

Responsible for the editorial vision for Laptop Mag and Tom's Guide, Mark Spoonauer has been Editor in Chief of LAPTOP since 2003 and has covered technology for nearly 15 years. Mark speaks at key tech industry events and makes regular media appearances on CNBC, Fox and CNN. Mark was previously reviews editor at Mobile Computing, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc.

Jake: “Neither. Apple is falling behind. Their time will soon be done”. Cute comment! I’ve been hearing the exact same thing for what, 6 years now? Yet Apple smashes their sales records with every release. To you that’s “falling behind”? Some people really do have a weird way of interpreting information.